How to Get Away with Murder in 10 Steps
by pr0nz69
Summary: [Persona 4] [Spoilers] He didn't mean to kill her, just punish her a little for betraying him. That doesn't matter to her, though, and he can't fault her for that. [Character Study] [Mature Content]


Written by pr0nz69 the younger.

I started this a long, long time ago, and originally, it was going to be much pr0nier with explicit Dojima/Adachi scenes. I came back to it and retooled it into this sort of character study you see here.

* * *

1

He doesn't even make it through his first week in Inaba before there's a handprint, pink and smarting, across his left cheek.

"Goddamnit, Adachi!" has, in only four days, become Dojima's favorite catchphrase, and he tosses it out now as he shakes feeling back into the hand he struck flesh with, as if _it's_ the offended party. Adachi stands with his arms at his sides and his head dropped low to his chest, looking repentant but not feeling it, feeling shocked instead, and angry, almost to the point of unresponsiveness. Dojima accepts it as an apology, though, and claps him on the shoulder with that same hand.

"Just don't do it again, okay?" he says, and he's sounding fatherly now, and self-righteous, like he's just spanked his kid and feels a little guilty about it, but he's still sending him to his room without dinner. It's all too familiar, and too close, to even consider laughing at the irony of it.

At some point, Adachi becomes aware that he's nodding, then mumbling out something that must be an apology, but Dojima doesn't need his confirmation, just brushes past him and goes to get a roll of paper towels from the bathroom to soak up the spilled coffee. Adachi stares at the ruined case file, not really seeing it. The cup left his hand long before it tipped.

He was sure, once he left Tokyo, once he left home for good, that this wouldn't happen anymore, but here he is again, scolded like a dog and slapped in the face like someone's cheap whore.

2

He can't even stop Dojima from doing it. He knows he should have, the very first time it happened, to set a precedent against it, but he was taken aback then, he tells himself, or some other excuse that makes him feel justified in his inaction. He knows all along why he can't fight back, though. It's something psychological, or Freudian or whatever, some kind of string or cord that's binding him, that won't snap even though it's thin as spider's silk. It's been wrapped and twisted around him for so long, he doesn't even know where to begin looking for a break in it.

Dojima works him like a slave and treats him like a dog, and in his early stages of denial, he tries to enjoy it. It means he's needed, is what he tells himself, and he's needed to be needed for a long time now. But even his silver tongue can't keep the charade up forever, and he's found that it's much harder to fool himself, anyway.

At home, he's made it a nightly ritual to hover over the bathroom sink and press at his bruises. Most of them are on his face, clear signs of assault, but the rest of the force seem to find them funny because it's only bumbling dogsbody Adachi earning his just deserts. Men in the streets see them and look at him like he's a woman, like he's weak, and women won't even look at him at all. That Mayumi Yamano is on the news a lot lately, though, and _she_ looks at him, so in his head, they start to date. He forgets after a while that they've never actually met, but he's learning to overlook small details, anyway.

3

He hears about the Midnight Channel from somewhere, and of course he thinks it's bullshit, the kind of trash those new age occultists try to spread because they need validation from somebody. The first time he actually sees it isn't on purpose, he's just a little bit depressed and a little bit drunk, and Mayumi's not on the screen anymore, so he clicks it off.

When she shows up for him again right after, that's when he knows for sure it's because they're supposed to be together. It's fitting, he thinks, because she's the first one who hasn't rejected him.

There's something going on with that Namatame, though, and he doesn't pay it much mind at first, but then Mayumi gets pulled down into the mud, and he has to ask. She's so defiant when she abandons him, and it makes her ugly. Her face was never pretty, but that's what he liked about her.

He's calm, after. There's a low hum in the air and in his head, and the TV is cold static around his wrists like handcuffs.

4

After he pushes Mayumi Yamano into the TV, he returns to his studio apartment and masturbates openly over the scuffed tiles of his kitchenette. The memories of her breath ghosting across his ear as she called for help and her thin little shoulders trembling beneath his hands are hot enough to get him off, but he doesn't think of them.

He thinks of power, instead, and control. He thinks of Dojima with his head stuck through the TV, broad chest heaving, rough hands scrabbling and clutching at Adachi's hair. Once he's at the bottom, he'll beg to be let out, but Adachi won't do it. Instead, he'll peer in and yell down to him, "Should have treated me better, Dojima-san!"

No-–he'll say something cooler, something to really show him. He'll say, "You seriously thought you were the one in control?" Or maybe, "Beg like a dog, and I might let you out!"

But no matter how hard he tries, he can't envision Dojima begging, and so he can't get off. He switches to thinking about Mayumi again, but now he can't remember what he ever even saw in her.

5

He throws up when he sees her body. It isn't gruesome; she's bloodless, looks like she's only sleeping under the tarp. He's seen homicides before and hasn't cared, but hers strikes him because he hates taking responsibility for things, and that's what she's making him do.

He didn't mean to kill her, just punish her a little for betraying him. That doesn't matter to her, though, and he can't fault her for that.

A crowd's gathered now. Dojima calls him a rookie, threatens him with desk work. There's something sadomasochistic in the way he bullies him like this, something voyeuristic. Adachi drops to his knees, partly because he's still nauseated but also because it feels like he should be sucking dick right now. He doesn't think Dojima would appreciate that with sick on his mouth, though, so he doesn't. Mayumi watches with glassy eyes and pities him even in death.

6

He never dated the Konishi bitch (her face isn't pretty, either), but it pisses him off to see that shriveled up Namatame getting another easy lay. He knows how to ruin both of them.

7

He doesn't throw up this time, but he can't go around that liquor store again.

Namatame takes over from here.

8

He didn't ever think it would last this long, but it's been months already, and not even the Shirogane brat has a clue. (Not like he expects him to, but the way the kid fellates his own ego has got the dumbasses at the station all hot and bothered for progress.) Dojima seems agitated lately, and Adachi gets the brunt of his abuse, but it's almost worth it to see him so frustrated for once.

Sometimes, when the case gets to be too much to bear, they go drinking together. Dojima can't hold his liquor; Adachi can and can make it look like he can't.

Dojima yells at him here, too, but it's supposed to be funny because he's drunk. He doesn't hit him, at least, couldn't even if he tried in this sorry state, but he does touch him sometimes, on the arm, on the face, on the lips. Tonight as they're leaving, his hand finds its way down the back of his pants. Adachi pretends not to notice at first, for some reason, but once Dojima starts cupping his ass, everyone's already tuned in, and he has to make a big silly show about how drunk his boss is, better get him home before he gets worse.

His basest instinct would have him leave Dojima on the flooded banks of the Samegawa on the way and hope for the best, but even now, he's too much of a coward to do it with his own hands. There were witnesses, anyway, he reminds himself, back at the bar, and there's no way he's giving Dojima his life.

It's only once they reach the house that he even remembers Nanako. He doesn't hate her; he knows what it's like to have shitty parents. She thanks him for bringing her father home, and he helps get Dojima into bed because she's six and shouldn't have to deal with this.

Walking home, he feels cold even though it isn't out here. He slides his hand over the backside of his suit pants, tracing the outline of his ass, and shudders.

He collapses onto his futon as soon as he gets through the door, but it's getting harder and harder to sleep lately, and he doesn't get much rest at all.

0

Michiru is the kind of woman boys like-–tall and full-figured with a pretty face. Adachi takes her in with his eyes, keeps thinking those thoughts because if he doesn't, he feels defective, and he wants to make himself want this.

She has him cornered against the living room wall, but he won't move, won't even speak up to ask her to. After a while, she lifts one of his hands and places it flat on her chest. She's soft there, and warm, and he thinks again how he should be thrilled because nobody else has a tutor like her, and Mother isn't home, so he should take advantage of this and maybe slip his hand down her v-neck, give her a quick squeeze. That's what any boy would do, he thinks.

He doesn't touch her.

She's impatient and thrusts his hand away after a few moments and then smashes him across the face with hers. He crumples to his knees, and there's blood and saliva on his lower lip tasting like bad grades, and then she slams her heel onto his right shoulder, holding him down.

"Tohru-chan!" she cries, sounding indignant, but he knows that voice because Mother uses it, too, and it sounds fake as all hell to him. "You pervert! How could you touch a lady there?"

The hell I did, is what he wants to say, but that's not how this works. Michiru presses harder on his shoulder, forcing him lower to the ground.

"I'm sorry," he whispers, always apologizing.

"Dirty boys need to be punished," she tells him, like it's another fact to be memorized (will this also be on the entrance exam?), and then she removes her foot from his shoulder to stick it hard between his legs. He gasps, tries to close his knees, but she won't let up until he's begging through his tears for her to stop.

"Get up," she says at last, and what choice does he have? She'll tell Mother that he groped her, and she'll punish him herself. At least Michiru can't do anything that will leave a mark.

She tells him to lift his hands up, and he does, and then she marches him to his room like a prisoner and pushes him onto his bed, and he realizes that he was wrong, she can do whatever she wants to him as long as no one ever sees it. She lays him out on his stomach, pulls down his pants and boxers, and takes up that yellow highlighter she has him use for his notes.

0

His parents are fighting again over something. He just wants to study. Maybe it's an accident, but his father strikes him, so he goes to his room crying. He doesn't do that a lot anymore, but something snapped along with his nose, and now he's stuck feeling sorry for himself.

Yellow plus red makes orange (he'll have to check his sheets), and he hates Michiru because now he has to put a cushion from the sofa on his chair, and that only makes him cry harder.

0

Life doesn't really get better once he moves out even though he pretends it does. He doesn't have to eat Mother's nimono anymore, so that's something.

9

Things get away from him for a while because the kids get involved and people stop dying. Even the gamer kid gets out alright, somehow.

Adachi writes a letter and slips it into Dojima's mailbox, then again a few weeks later, because the more victims there are now, the less blood he has on _his_ hands, but that bastard Namatame can't even kill a single one of them, not even the little girl already so close to death's door. He doesn't want Nanako to die-–she was never part of the plan-but what happens almost destroys Dojima, and he isn't guilty about that at all.

Those high school brats won't stop sniffing, and he has to get involved again.

10

No matter how much those kids suspect him, they can't prove anything

11

until he messes up, says something he shouldn't (they trick him, catch him off-guard, and he's been getting careless himself). Now he can see the world he damned them to, Mayumi and the schoolgirl, and he makes his heaven out of hell. It's something so painful and beautiful he thinks he'll never leave.

12

But of course, the brats come to find him, and they beat him within an inch of his life, but they're just so _noble_ they won't even kill him (he begs them to).

In the end, he goes back with them willingly because maybe he was getting tired of this game after all.

13

The look Dojima gives him when they bring him out in handcuffs is so deliciously satisfying, and yet he feels nothing.

14

Nor does he feel anything when Dojima's apologizing behind glass.

"Was this to get back at me?" he demands, and his voice is wet and husky and full of some other unsounded emotion-–pity? Regret? Sorrow?

Adachi only smiles, holds up his shackled wrists so Dojima can see them through the glass. "It isn't all about you, you know," he tells him smugly. "I've always been like this." He gives a tug on the chain for emphasis, then lowers his hands back to his lap, clenching his fists. "You just never took the time to notice."

Dojima's head falls into his hands, and Adachi drops his smile just as quickly. None of this is fun, even when he acts like it is. Mayumi's always watching him sleep, and even Konishi stares at him through the bars of his cell when she thinks he isn't looking. Now Dojima's haunting him in the flesh, a specter of guilt, and he can't even get himself to blame it all on him, somehow, even though it would be more than easy to.

Maybe, he thinks, he's grown, but even he can't allow himself that much credit.

Dojima's so pitiful he can't stand to watch him anymore, so he has the guard escort him back to his cell. He thinks that will be the end of that, until Dojima returns the next week, and the week after, and then he realizes he isn't the only one needing to make amends.


End file.
